Stockport challenges Woodford Garden Village appeal
The saga of Harrow Estates’ outline plans for 540 homes continues, with the council looking to take the Planning Inspectorate’s decision to approve the project to the High Court.
Central to the Planning Inspectorate’s approval was the argument at the 84-acre extension of Woodford Garden Village qualified as Grey Belt. This was due in part to half of the projected homes being designated as affordable and 75 reserved for older people. The land itself was formerly occupied by the Woodford Aerodrome and sits off Chester Road.
In addition to the residential element, the project also includes a community hub, an events space, 36 acres of open space, and a promise to increase the size of the local primary school.
Harrow, a division of Barratt Redrow, had taken the application to the Planning Inspectorate in October after the council failed to make a decision on it within the statutory timescales.
The Planning Inspectorate had sided with the developer, noting that Stockport did not have an adequate five-year housing land supply. The Inspector agreed that the site was Grey Belt rather than Green Belt.
Cllr Jake Austin, Stockport Council’s cabinet member for housing and environment, disagreed.
“Our Green Belt is precious, and it should not be subject to the whims of developers,” he said in a statement.
He added later: “Leaving this decision unchallenged would’ve had a devastating impact on the precedent of future developments across Stockport.
“This decision is about more than just one development, it is about fighting back against this government and delivering the infrastructure we need across all of the borough where they are forcing development to happen.”
Stockport Council has filed for a judicial review of the Planning Inspectorate’s decision with the High Court. The government’s legal team will be tasked with defending the case, should it move to the hearing stage.
Regarding the looming legal challenge, Harrow planning director Steve Neal said: “The extension to Woodford Garden Village was approved following a comprehensive and independent process. We were pleased the Planning Inspectorate supported the scheme and acknowledged the direct benefits it will bring for the area.”
He continued: “The development will provide much‑needed new homes, including 50% affordable housing, alongside new green space, improved sports facilities, education investment and sustainable transport improvements.
“We remain committed to working constructively with Stockport Council and local representatives as we continue to grow the community at Woodford Garden Village.”
The planning project team for the Woodford Garden Village extension includes Planit, Gerald Eve, SLR, Tetlow King Planning, RPS, Turley, Mainer Associates, Alyn Nicholls, and Strenger. You can view the contested application by searching reference DC/094533 on Stockport council’s planning portal.
Related Articles
Analysis - Commentary
Making room for placemaking in industrial schemes
Industrial doesn’t have to mean big grey sheds that sit on the edge of town. With proper placemaking we can deliver commercially viable schemes that are celebrated hubs of employment, writes Alan Lamb of AEW Architects.
Performative
By Rich X
What a mess. The opportunity to dictate where development is located in Stockport and protect from planning by appeal in the Green Belt long since left the station when the council chose to remove itself from PfE. Sounds like SMBC council tax payers like me will be picking up more legal fees after this…
By Stockport resident
Will be fascinated to see on what grounds the Council are challenging this decision.
On the face of it looks like a challenge based on political need (local elections anyone?), rather than one based on sound planning grounds ….. but we’ll see I guess.
By Depressed Latic
Is this a judicial review? The way the article is written suggests that the Council has just written to the Government asking for it to reverse PINS decision. It might be worth clarifying…
By Anonymous
The article is written as accurately as possible based on my understanding, but am hunting more information!
By Julia Hatmaker
Have updated the story as I’ve learned more – a legal challenge has been filed with the High Court.
By Julia Hatmaker
If there is one thing you can say about Stockport Council….. it’s that they are passionate about burning through rate payers money on unnecessary planning legal fees.
By T.D.Smith
The Lib Dems in Stockport are playing political games yet again. The councillors, officers and their lawyers know that this will not be overturned yet they are going to spend rate players money to basically say that this is the Government’s fault and not the councils. I suggest that the Stockport Lib Dems get their own house in order and produce a credible local plan, find an adequate land supply and rejoin the Greater Manchester planning framework, in short start doing a proper job of managing planning in Stockport.
By Anonymous
Julia – can you please establish what is the legal basis for challenging the Planning Inspectorates decision. It will help considerably in providing a context for what is a very brave move by the Council.
By Anonymous
Should the Council even be announcing a political stunt like this so close to polling day, or is Purdah no longer a thing in Stockport?
By Town Clerk
News didn’t come from the council.
By Julia Hatmaker
The Manchester Evening News are reporting it as the council having filed a legal challenge. The correct legal challenge in this circumstance would be an application for judicial review of the inspector’s decision. I guess we’ll find out more about the grounds for that challenge when it gets listed by the courts. The appeal reference for looking it up on the planning inspectorate’s website is APP/C4235/W/25/3373210.
By Anonymous
Julia – The Council should be able to provide a succinct synopsis on what grounds the challenge is being taken forward on. This challenge must be based on a legal error (“erred in law”) rather than a disagreement with the planning merits so it should be very easy fro the Council to be open and transparent with their reasoning.
The article suggests that it is challenging the planning merits of the decision rather than setting out the legal error on which the Council is mounting its case.
By Anonymous
An extraordinary decision by the council to challenge this, albeit not one I’m surprised by, having seen some of the comments by (Conservative) councillors. Essentially, the councillors obviously feel they can’t face the popular backlash of failing to mount this doomed challenge.
Unfortunately it will come at the cost of ratepayers in Stockport, of which I am one.
From the outside, without access to any legal advice, I feel it looks close to misfeasance in public office. It’s just incurring cost to attempt the impossible.
By Anonymous
Absence of a local plan equals free for all on the green/grey belt. SMBC have zero legal basis for going to the High Court on this and their legal representatives know this. More rate payers cash spaffed up the wall. Get a local plan defined and you’ve then got something to measure development applications against.
By Anonymous
Boring Stockport again the South Manchester scroungers looking for good council tax profits..They disposed of Manchester plan but now deciding to built affluent homes on the green land but can’t sort out scummy districts
By Anonymous
The inspectorate and developers must stop trying to declassified green belt and grey as it is ridiculous. Brown field first is what must be used not our green fields. The government should be ashamed of themselves. Here’s to the next general election where we can get Labour out
By Yvette Tulley
Stockport would be well advised to spend the money they will waste on judicial review instead of putting a local plan in place. As a local resident I’m embarrassed.
By Pete
Thanks for clarifying Julia. It really doesn’t matter whether this came through the SMBC press office or not. An Exec Member then appears to be announcing SMBC making a legal challenge in their capacity as an Exec Member. Without very pressing reasons, this could have been made public before or after Purdah kicked in. Otherwise, it’s a Stockport Lib Dem political press release which should be noted as such.
By Town Clerk
Yvette, we have a housing crisis and brownfield sites will not satisfy the need for new housing therefore whichever party is in control some greenbelt land will have to be developed. Any political party saying anything else is not being honest.
By Anonymous
Hmm if we have such a housing crisis maybe we should be stopping people owning second homes and stopping foreign nationals buying property until our own population is housed
By Anonymous
I assume you mean rich foreign nationals, Anonymous @ 10.30am? You should be clearer given the toxicity and misinformation around this subject. I’ll assume that is what you do mean and so should everyone else, unless you wish to say otherwise, with supporting information.
By Anonymouswatch
The housing crisis in the UK is caused by many factors not just immigration, which by the way has fallen significantly in the last year. Smaller households, the right to buy scheme, fall in council house building since the 1980s and the lack of suitable development land has all contributed. To blame immigration alone just follow a narrow, misguided and simplistic political narrative. Any political party who says all the UKs problems can be solved by stopping immigration is being dishonest.
By Anonymous
Lots of people commenting on this without knowing what the issues at hand are. They’re all there to be read in the appeal documents. The principle of building the homes wasn’t being debated, it was about whether or not there were suitable mechanisms being put in place, through the section 106 legal agreement, to ensure that adequate necessary infrastructure was provided. Housing development in the green belt is required to provide for necessary infrastructure. It was specifically about the mechanisms to bring about required improvements in education and open space infrastructure. Read the inspectors decision if you want to reach your own conclusions on whether there is some legal failing in it, otherwise I’d suggest waiting until the papers for the legal challenge are published before reaching any conclusions (better still, perhaps wait for the courts to reach a judgement on the case and stop jumping to conclusions based on assumptions)
By Anonymous
Where are all the amenities that were promised to people who bought properties on this vast estate. No nursery no shops 1 pub.
By Clair Kearsley
Anonymous 30th April at 5.23pm. I agree with your analysis except that the papers will not be “published”. The Council should place their legal challenge paperwork on the planning portal so we can all weigh up the strength or otherwise of the case and we can determine if this is a good use of public money
By Anonymous
Don’t think that this should happen
By Anonymous
The challenge here is a farce! The council don’t like the Inspectors decision to chose the appellants School contributions and open space contributions, rather than their specified amounts. So the toys are out of the pram, and political pressure from local councillors et al, (Crossen etc) who have no grasp of the situation means they are wasting my taxes amongst other residents. I suggest someone sends the Council a FOI request to find about what this debacle is costing…
By W Rooney
April 30, 2026 at 6:46 pm. I don’t recall any specific end uses to the Commercial area being promised? Certainly not to me. They are overdue, granted, but I can’t imagine there’s a wealth of interest in coming forward to take on the units given market uncertainty and events such as COVID in the past few years. I’m sure they will be built before the current development is completed.
By Anonymous Resident.
If I were Stockport Council, I’d focus a little bit more on delivering their requirements as part of the Woodford Development than trying to bash the Developer. What have the council done with the vast sums of contributions they’ve received. Where are all the improvements they agreed to deliver?
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
By Hawkeye
Public transport??? Nonexistent although promised at the outset of the ‘Garden Village’ thus increasing car transport on crowded roads & causing isolation of many ‘senior’ residents
By Anne Long
Hi Hawkeye and Anonymous Resident. Always nice to see the housebuilders in the comments section.
By Green Belt Ben